In recent years, engineers have designed draper headers of greater width. As the width of these draper headers increases, they follow the contours of the ground more poorly. As a result, the draper headers do not harvest crop as accurately as older, narrower headers.
One solution to this problem has been to permit the frame of the header to flex by assembling the frame in multiple sections that are hinged to each other.
An alternative solution has been to provide arms that are pivotally coupled to the frame and extend forward from the frame. These arms pivot up and down at their forward ends about their pivotal connection to the frame. The arms are coupled to the cutter bar at their forward ends. This arrangement permits the arms to pivot up and down as the cutter bar follows the contours of the ground even though the frame is rigid.
One drawback to this basic pivoting arm arrangement is excessive conveyor belt wear. The endless belt conveyors are supported on the pivoting arms. With the arms pivoting about the rear of the arms, when an arm supporting one end of the conveyor belt pivots upward, the forward edge of the conveyor belt is highly tensioned and the rear edge of the conveyor belt is not tensioned. This uneven tension across the width of the conveyor belt causes excessive wear of the conveyor belt.
It is an object of this invention to provide an alternative means for suspending the conveyor belts on the float arms that reduces the uneven tension across the width of the conveyor belt and thereby extends the life of the conveyor belts.